The file represents the full communication between the German foreign intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and Wikileaks as of December the 22nd 2008. The communication was initiated after a request for removal and legal threats made by the BND over various publications on Wikileaks.

Even though a mail address can easily be faked, the ongoing communication between Wikileaks and the BND verifies the veracity of the sender, in this case leitungsstab@bnd.bund.de. The sender of the initial mail also has received and answered to a reply from Wikileaks, which at the least means the mails have been sent from someone with access to this mailbox.

While the first mail sent by the BND arrived at Wikileaks on Thursday the 18th, it is noteworthy that this mail had actually already been sent two days earlier: The BND had sent it to a Wikileaks Chat address, Wikileaks@jabber.se, obviously mistaking it as an e-mail address.

The text files contains both the German and English original mail, and subsequent communication in English. The messages have been converted from the original HTML format of the BND's mails to plain text.